The Secret Anthology
by Amicitia Revenant
Summary: A gift for my readers: short stories that had been scattered across the internet, now collected on FFN for the first time, with bonus commentary.
1. Lay Me Down

It has been on my mind for some time that many people who enjoy my fics have not read all my fics, for the simple reason that many of my stories are only posted in obscure locations (and some of them are posted nowhere, since the original Stealthy Stories forum exploded). I refer to these as my "hidden" or "secret" fics, and they make me happy because I enjoy having pointless secrets. But as I mark my tenth anniversary of being in the TMNT fandom - and nearly my tenth anniversary of writing in the fandom - I wanted to bring these stories into the light.

In early 2007, when I was a senior in college, a friend burst into my dorm room and said, "There is a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie coming out, and we are going to see it."

I said, "You mean that show I watched as a kid?"

Remembering almost nothing about that weird cartoon, I visited a newfangled website called YouTube to see if I could find some episodes. Stumbling across something called "The Lost Season", I decided to watch that, on the grounds that I probably hadn't seen it before.

I certainly had not, and it had been so long since I had watched the '80s cartoon, I didn't even realize I was watching a completely different show. (It is for this reason that I have never been able to shake the impression that the Ancient One is some sort of mutant pig.)

At any rate, I went to see the 2007 movie at a small local theater down the road from Northampton, had a great time, and the rest is history.

The story below is my first TMNT fic. It was originally posted April 21, 2008, on the TMNT-L forums.

* * *

 **Lay Me Down**

His brothers had passed on - each in their own time, in their own way - and he was the last of his kind.

He rested his arms on the faux wood of the familiar table. "I'm done."

She reached for his plate.

He put his hand on top of hers. "No. I'm _done_."

She looked at him through dark eyes. Her mother's. "You're only ninety-eight."

He laughed hollowly. "We always were more human than turtle."

They were silent.

"I'll miss you."

"I know."

She turned her hand over, stroking his palm with her fingers. The clock ticked.

"You know what to do." It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"The lair. Three days."

She nodded. He squeezed her hand, pulled back.

"Take care of yourself."

"I will," she said. But he was already gone.

* * *

He lay down on the old couch. Breathed deeply, in and out, and focused his mind. His last thoughts would be of his family.

He was falling.

And then his brothers were there, lifting him up, helping him stand with them.

"Hey, kid. Been waiting for you."

* * *

It was three days after they brought home their baby boy that she remembered. She moved to the antique desk as if in a dream, opened the drawer, pulled out the envelope from the past. The one waiting for her when she visited the lair in the sewers for the last time. ( _Burn and scatter_ , he had made her promise, as he had done for his brothers, each in their own time.)

 _Open when your first child is born_ , the envelope said. His handwriting. Always like a child's.

She turned over the thick package, slit the seal, shook open the paper within.

 _Cody August Jones_

 _November 4th, 2088_

 _7 pounds, 13 ounces_

 _Tell him how cool his great-uncles were_

There was still something bulky in the envelope. She upended it over the desk, pinched the sides together.

Four ninja masks, tied with a ribbon, tumbled out. Looped onto the ribbon was another scrap of paper. It read, simply: _For his collection._


	2. The First Fic

Why was my first TMNT fic posted on the L forums? Well, after I went to see the 2007 movie, some friends persuaded me to go to my very first comic convention (NYCC 2007) dressed as a Foot ninja. As soon as we set foot on the con floor in our matching 1990-movie-style costumes, we were almost literally assaulted by the superfan sometimes known as Michaelangelo. She invited us to her website, and after hanging around there for a while, I tentatively posted a story.

But before that first "real" TMNT fic, I had posted a couple of TMNT-esque fics on a forum dedicated to X-Men: Evolution, my former fandom. (I'm a one-fandom-at-a-time kind of person.) This, then, is the first story I ever wrote that was inspired by TMNT.

* * *

"Whoa." From the canopy of the enormous tree they'd materialized in, Renet felt like she could see the entire world, and she didn't recognize any of it. "Where are we? _When_ are we?"

"Salem, Massachusetts," replied her mentor. "1692. Ring any bells?"

"Um..." Renet tried to remember her lessons at the Sorcery Underschool. "The witch trials?"

"Very good."

"But why would Savanti go to a place and time where they burned witches?"

Lord Simultaneous twirled the Time Scepter through his fingers with an easy grace that belied his age. "Savanti Romero's last spell was powerful enough to timejump him to the modern age. But that power came at the cost of accuracy."

Renet screwed up her face, as she always did when thinking through difficult problems. "So, from here he can cast a weaker but more accurate spell? But hasn't he already burnt all his energy?"

"Good," Simultaneous nodded. "It should have taken Savanti some time to rebuild his magical stores enough to cast another timespell. But, luckily for him, and unluckily for us, he happened to land here."

Renet gazed across the valleys and villages, trying to see why this situation was so bad. "I don't get it," she said at last. "Is he planning to mess with the timestream?" She turned excitedly to her teacher. "Are we going to thwart him?"

Lord Simultaneous sighed and pointed down at the courthouse. "None of the people put on trial here were really witches. But, I suspect that there _is_ a well of magical energy somewhere near here. And if you would be quiet, I might be able to sense for it."

Renet shut her mouth. She hadn't yet learned how to sense for magical fields, or really to do any magic at all. So far it was all "theory of looptime" and "physics of timeslips".

"Hey," she said suddenly. "If there's a magic well here, then Savanti could use it to recharge himself and timejump back to -"

" _Yes_ , Renet," Simultaneous said. "Now _please_ be quiet."

Renet adjusted her seat on the branch. She could tell this mission wasn't going to be any fun at all. It would just be "there's the well, now stand back while I drain it", and back to the Academy.

And she'd thought being a Timestress would be _cool_.


	3. Four Instafics

The forum on which my very first TMNT fic was posted, The Realm of the InterNutter, is now sadly defunct. However, since I am a truly obsessive record keeper, I can tell you that that fic was written (and likely posted) on May 22, 2007, as part of a daily insta-fic challenge run on that forum.

The stories below followed on May 23, June 22, June 25, and July 7, respectively. The first three are not specifically identifiable as TMNT fics, but I promise that was the author's intention.

* * *

"What is that?"

"What, don't you know a steering wheel when you see one?"

"All right, wise guy. What's it doing in the kitchen?"

"Hanging on the wall?"

"Any reason?"

"I think it adds a little something to the decor. A certain _je ne sais quoi_."

"When did you learn Spanish?"

"Oh, very funny. I was thinking I could put some clockwork in the shaft. Maybe get it to honk on the hour."

"You're kidding, right?"

"No! It would be cool - like _beep beep, beep beep, my clock went beep beep beep. Now it's honking quarter to nine_ -"

"I hate to break it to you, man, but... you don't have a future as a singer. Or an interior decorator."

"What are you trying to say?"

"Don't quit your day job."

* * *

"Unnhhh... I don't feel so good..."

"Yeah, so we've heard. Found anything yet, Brainiac?"

"Yes, but... you won't like it."

"I don't like many things."

"Well... it's nanobots."

"Nanobots. Why is it always nanobots?"

"Ah... ah... ah-choo!"

"Ahhh... ever heard of tissues, germbag? You got your snot all over me!"

"Hehe... it's greeeeen..."

"Ugh..."

"*sniff*"

"Hey, what the- it's moving! Your *snot* is crawling up my *arm*!"

"Well, that's -"

"Getitoffme! Getitoffme! Aaaggghhh!"

*spliff*

"What the heck did you just squirt at me?"

"Antidote?"

"Did it have to be purple and slimy?"

"Well, it stopped the snot, didn't it?"

"Hey, gimme some of that!"

"Wait, it's not meant to be -"

"*glup* ... Blaaarrrggghhhh!"

"- taken orally."

"*Now* you tell me. ... I feel better, though. A lot better! Hehe..."

"That's nice... please leave my lab before you -" *crash* " - break stuff?"

* * *

"This thing is totally rigged."

"It is not. You're just a weakling."

"Oh yeah? You try!"

"Fine, I will!"

The bell didn't ring.

"It _is_ rigged."

"Told you so. I bet even that thing with all the tentacles couldn't do it."

"... What is that?"

"I dunno. Are you in or not?"

"Fine. Ten dollars."

"Hey! Mr. Alien Guy? You want to try this game?"

The thing with all the tentacles squelched over. It looked at the tall pole. It raised the hammer.

*ding*

"... Damn."

* * *

Below the streets, below the sewers, below the sleek new subway station, in an abandoned depot left over from the old pub-trans system, a game was being rudely interrupted.

"Have you guys seen my catnip?"

"No, Mikey," the three tangled turtles chorused.

"Because I know I have some, and I gotta find it! Klunk needs his catnip! He neeeeeds his CATNIP!" The frustrated mutant wandered off, still talking to himself, trailed by an orange kitten.

Splinter flicked the plastic arrow and, when it came to rest, studied the cardboard square it was flimsily attached to. "Right hand red," he intoned.

Raphael shouldered Leonardo's reaching arm aside to claim the red circle that lay between them. "Ha," he said. "Too slow, bro."

Donatello settled onto a red circle in the opposite corner of the plastic mat. "Ow," he said. "Raph, I think that's your sai in my leg."

"Well, I think that's your _bo_ in my _eye_ ," Raph replied.

Splinter surveyed his students. "My sons," he said, "perhaps you should play this game _without_ your weapons."


	4. Childhood's Remains

It was _not_ the author's intention for this story to be a TMNT fic. It was posted on Stealthy Stories in 2009, where readers (understandably) assumed it was a TMNT fic, and nominated it for the SS Fanfic Competition at the end of the year. The fandom met me halfway, though, by awarding this story first place for Best Original Character.

* * *

 **Childhood's Remains**

A cold gust shivers her out of sleep, and she rolls over, pulling the blankets closer under her chin.

A soft _tick_ of wood against wood, small but startling, loosens the clinging fingers of drowsiness from her mind. She rolls back the other way, towards the window, and opens her eyes.

A figure, unfamiliar and weirdly wide, is standing in the darkness of her room, drawing the heavy curtains together and smoothing them into stillness.

The figure turns and looks at her with empty eyes.

She scrambles out of bed, towards the door, towards her parents and comfort and safety. As she rolls from mattress to floor, she jars her shoulder hard against the nightstand, upsetting the glass of water that her father always sets there as part of their bedtime ritual. It falls to the plush carpet, spilling its contents but otherwise unharmed, until the next step in her stumbling flight brings her bare foot crushing down upon it.

She inhales to scream, from pain, from fear, but the figure raises a thick finger to his... lips, and she holds her breath in, not yet letting it fly with her shrill voice riding upon its back.

The figure lowers his finger, slowly. "Don't scream," he whispers. "If you scream, I'm in a lot of trouble."

She nods, her heart still beating fast, and lets out the air in an exaggeratedly silent gasp.

The figure moves closer, seeming to float across the padded floor. "Did you hurt yourself?"

She nods again.

"Let me see."

She raises her small foot, wobbles dangerously, braces herself to feel sharp glass slicing again into her sole.

And then the figure is beside her, his hand on her arm, and she is balanced against him.

He lifts her effortlessly ( _strong, like Daddy_ ) and sets her in the bed. She can feel beads of blood sliding along her skin, threatening to drip.

Then fabric, something the figure has produced from somewhere, is being wrapped around her hurting foot by sure and steady hands.

He ties a knot, pats her knee, and turns to sweep up the broken glass.

"Why are you in trouble?" she whispers.

He's silent for a moment, sweeping. His fingers trace through the fibers of the thick carpet, catching the slivers of glass, piling them up, and she wonders if they are hurting him, piercing his warm, rough skin.

"I'm playing a game," he says. Hushed, voiceless. "Like Hide-and-Seek. If they find me, I'm in trouble."

"What about when you find them?" she asks.

He smiles, bright in the darkness. "Then _they're_ in trouble." The twinkling pieces of glass vanish, suddenly, perhaps into the mysterious place the bandage came from. "Can I hide here for a while?"

"Okay," she says.

He pats the side of her leg, and she swings her feet up into bed, rearranging the blankets she flung aside earlier and snuggling down against the pillow.

The figure slides into the low space below the bedframe, nestling into the deep carpet. "Want me to tell you a story?" he asks.

She fingers a corner of the blanket. "Yeah."

She hears him breathe, muted below the springs and the mattress and the sheets. Then he begins a tale of adventure in the dark, of dastardly villains and the noble heroes who pursue them down every alley, until they have no place left to hide. It's a story of her city. It's a story of the monsters who lurk in it, and the tireless forces that keep little girls out of their clutches.

He's under her bed, and he's being chased...

"Are you a monster?" she asks.

A long pause. She can hear the blood in her ear, echoing against the pillow.

"I'll be _your_ monster," he says.

And then his story continues, until she drifts to sleep on the river of words.

In the morning, he's gone.

He stays gone for weeks.

* * *

Her parents notice the missing glass, the sudden bandage, and interrogate her. She tells them what happened. They don't believe her.

Her father unwraps her foot, studies the reddened injuries, and puts a new, clean bandage on them. She never sees the first bandage again.

Her parents install new locks on the doors and windows, and a new security system. Every time they go in or out of the apartment, every time they open or close a window, the alarm shrieks until one of them, muttering and cursing, shuts it off.

Every night her father sets the alarm before tucking her into bed. It becomes part of their ritual. One night, she asks him how her monster will be able to come and visit. He tells her that she doesn't have to worry about monsters anymore.

The days pass.

She begins to wonder if her monster will ever come back, or if the banshee voice of the new security system has frightened him away forever. Sometimes she checks under the bed, to see whether he has snuck in while she wasn't looking. The carpet still bears a shadow of an indent, where he once lay, but the hollow is always empty.

Her foot heals, the band-aid falls off, and she begins to wonder whether a monster ever visited her at all.

And then, one night, he comes.

He comes in with a warmer gust this time, a gentle prelude to the approaching spring. As he slides the window closed, she wakes to his presence.

The security system remains asleep.

"How'd you do that?" she whispers.

He turns. "Monster magic."

She sits up in bed, and he moves across the dark room to settle himself at the end of the mattress. "Are you playing again?"

"Not tonight," he says. "Here." He reaches for the edge of the blanket, and she lies down again, letting him tuck her in. Then he tells her a story about his monster friends, and the fun they have together. A story about a game that ended in angry words. A story about how even amongst themselves, monsters can't always get along without fighting.

"So I'm hiding out from them, for a little while," he concludes.

"You can stay, if you want," she offers. "You could live in my closet."

"I can't," he says.

"Why?" she asks.

"Because they're my friends," he says.

" _I'm_ your friend," she says. "And you're my monster."

A laugh, silent but visible, plays across his face. "I was their monster first."

"You could quit being their monster," she suggests.

"I don't think so." He strokes her hair, fanned out against the pillow. "Go to sleep now."

She never hears him leave.

* * *

The next time he comes, he won't tell her any story. "Hiding, again," he says bitterly, when she asks him what he's doing.

"Why do you hide so much?" she asks.

He's silent a long time. Then he moves from the dark corner he's been standing in, pacing softly across the carpet to the door of her room. He remains there for another long moment before flicking on the light.

She blinks, to clear her eyes, then looks at him. He's standing sideways to her, his head down, his hand on the light switch. By human standards, his body is distorted, his skin miscolored.

On his own terms, he's beautiful.

He turns his head, just a little, and watches her out of the corner of his eye. His stance is defeat, rejection, and she can't understand what could have made him feel this way.

"But why do you hide?" she asks.

He smiles, and turns off the light.

* * *

The next day she takes out her crayons and draws a picture of her monster. Her parents tell her she has an extraordinary imagination. She asks them to help her Scotch-tape the picture to her wall.

The picture remains there only two days. On the second morning, it's gone, replaced by a very skilled pencil drawing of herself.

Her parents ask her who drew it, and she tells them her monster did. They don't believe her.

" _Who drew it?_ " they demand.

"A friend from school," she says softly.

She never talks to her parents about her monster again.

* * *

The months pass. Her monster comes frequently, sometimes, and other times he disappears for long stretches. Often, when he comes, he tells her stories. Occasionally she tells _him_ a story.

Once in a while, he comes so quietly that she doesn't wake. She'll rise out of sleep later in the night to find him sitting by her bed, his back against the wall, staring thoughtfully at the stuffed animals ranged across her shelves. She'll look at his shadowy profile, and know that there won't be any talking that night, and after a little while she'll slide back into dreams.

And a whole year passes in this way.

Winter comes again, and she wakes to find him kneeling beside her bed. A cold wind, like the one he first came in on, is swirling through the room. Snowflakes are melting on his shoulders.

"I can't come here anymore," he says bluntly.

She sits up. "Why?"

He enfolds her small hands between his enormous ones. "The people who are chasing me," he says. "They're getting close to finding my hiding place. We're both going to be in trouble."

She glances nervously at the window, at the curtains that give no sign that anyone has passed through them.

"I don't want that," he says. "It's better if I don't come here anymore." He says it like he's trying to convince both of them.

His attempt falls flat, and her lip wobbles. "But why?" she asks, around the painful lump in her throat.

He sighs heavily. "The trouble that's chasing me," he says, "it's bad. I don't want you to get hurt."

"Can't you use your magic?" she asks. "To make them go away?"

"I wish I could," he says, and she can feel the sincerity in his words, the stark contrast to his earlier resignation. "It doesn't work that way."

"But I want to see you," she says. Water is brimming in her eyes, at the thought that her monster is leaving her, at the thought that worse monsters might hurt him. She's frustrated for both of them, and disillusioned. The magic that always seemed to bring her monster to her when she needed him most has run out, and will never be there again.

"No, no, shh." He wipes away her tear with a calloused thumb. "You will. Just not here."

She frowns at him.

"I promise," he says. He kisses the pad of his finger, and presses it to the tip of her nose. "Be a good girl. I'll be watching."

She nods. She doesn't think she blinks, but between one frame of vision and the next, he's gone.

* * *

He keeps his promise. He doesn't come to her room anymore, with his announcing puff of wind, but she still sees him.

She sees his speeding outline on a rooftop as her mother walks her home from school. She swears she sees his eyes peering up from a storm drain at the playground. She smells his strange, musky odor as she stands with her back against worn brick, waiting while her mother uses a sidewalk ATM.

He's there when she starts fourth grade, the first day she walks the six blocks to school by herself. He's there when she's in fifth grade, when her class takes a field trip to Central Park and she gets separated from the group. He whispers to her which way to go, and when she finds her friends again, she whispers "thank you" in the direction she thinks his voice came from.

He's there when she's in seventh grade, and a boy she likes comes to her apartment to walk her to the school dance. And he's there when she's in tenth grade, the first time she gets behind the wheel of a car, guiding it nervously through figure-eights in a deserted parking lot.

But he's there less and less often, as she grows older. Or maybe he's just standing at a greater distance.

Or maybe she has forgotten how to look for him.

Sometimes she swears he's right behind her, but when she turns, nothing is there.

Just a puff of wind.

And the years pass.

* * *

He isn't there the day she packs her whole life in the back of the van, ready to make the long drive to college, and she doesn't even notice that he isn't there. She rarely thinks of him anymore. When she does, it is only as a hazy recollection, as the lost and faded dream of a child who is growing up.

She never sees him, never feels him watching, during her four years on that far-away campus. Apparently, among other things his monster magic can't do, it doesn't allow him to teleport himself across the country at will.

But that's all right. She has her friends, and her studies, and a life where the bad monsters stay deep in the shadows, away from the people she loves.

* * *

She has a diploma, a boyfriend, and a job that starts on Monday. All that's missing is a place to call her own.

In a few weeks she has one. She packs her belongings into the van for the last time, and drives them across town to her new apartment.

That evening, she's sitting on a cardboard box, drinking straight from the bottle of housewarming wine because she hasn't yet unpacked the glassware.

And then, he's there.

"Hi," he says.

She hasn't seen him this close since she was a little girl. She blinks, and looks at him, trying to reconcile the person before her with an image distorted first by childish fantasies and then by the passage of years. She looks down at the bottle in her hand, re-evaluates how much she's had to drink. _Not THAT much._

He is real, and he is exactly as strange as her earliest memories proclaim him to be.

At the same time, he's different than she remembers. He's older. He wears more scars, and a sense of weariness. Apparently his monster magic does not make him immortal, invincible, or immune to sadness.

For just one moment, she wishes his magic was really as powerful as it seemed to her six-year-old self. Then she remembers that she is an adult now, and he was already one when she was a child, and they both know that magic doesn't exist.

And yet, here he is.

She offers him the bottle.

He declines.

She offers him a box and he sits on the floor instead.

"Is it safe for you to be here?" she asks.

"If it wasn't," he says, "I wouldn't have come."

She chooses to believe him.

He asks her about her life. About college, about her friends and family, about her dreams for the future.

She asks him questions too, trying to construct the outlines of a monster's life, but he always turns the conversation away.

After a while he stands up, says good night, and climbs out her kitchen window.

It's the first time she's ever seen him leaving.

She hadn't realized before tonight how little she knew about him. She tries to remember the stories he used to tell, and wonders how much of them was true.

* * *

Months later, when she had finally finished unpacking everything, her boyfriend presented her with one more tiny box.

She cried, and said yes.

She spent that whole afternoon calling friends and family, telling them the news, repeating it until she felt more like a recording than a bride-to-be.

Now, she stands on the roof, looking at the sky. It's hardly silent, up here, but the voices that manage to reach this high are just a babble, a blur, and she doesn't have to listen or respond.

Then _he_ is there, greeting her in a voice that has also grown older.

"Congratulations."

She doesn't turn, yet. "How do you always know?"

"Monster magic," he replies, and she chooses to believe this too.

After a moment she rotates, slowly, enjoying the way the constellations wheel across her field of vision. She lingers on Orion, letting the familiar stars burn into her eyes, then lowers her gaze to his face.

"I never asked you your name," she says.

His smile is like a second moon.


	5. Notes from the Kitchen Table - Part 1

2009 was a good year for me, with a humbling eleven nods in the Stealthy Stories Fanfiction Competition. This story is the first part of a two-shot that took second place for Best Donatello Scene.

* * *

 **Notes from the Kitchen Table (Part 1)**

"Donnie?"

"Down here," came the muffled reply.

Michelangelo vaulted the railing, landed on the lowest level of the Lair, and padded across to the open hatchway. He bent over, peering into the crawlspace through which all the pump station's utility lines passed. "How's it look?"

"It's a mess." Don turned over, with difficulty, and poked at something out of Mike's line of sight. "What's up?"

"No sign of Klunk, but the kitchen's full of food and I found these."

"Found what?"

Mike held the sheaf of papers in front of the hatchway. "Big pile of notes from Case and April. Wanna listen?"

"Sure."

Mike sifted through the scraps. "Think they're in reverse order… what month was it when we left?"

"Um." An electrical noise and a muted curse. "May?"

Mike slid down the wall, shuffling the notes into the right order. "This looks like the first… May 9th… says…" He cleared his throat. " _Hey guys, came to visit but I guess you're out. Nothing important. April. P.S., Klunk's bowl was empty and he was making sad faces so I gave him some food. Hope that's okay._ "

"Throw me the sealant?"

"What?" He looked around. "Where?"

"It's in here; I can't turn around…"

Mike leaned into the crawlspace, dug through the toolbox, found the little tube and threw it down the narrow passage.

"Thanks."

"No problem." He withdrew and flipped the first note to the bottom of the pile. " _May 15th, Hey guys, you're not here again and I can't reach you on your phones. Hope you're having fun somewhere. Gave Klunk lots of food. April._ " He shifted the papers again. "This one's got no date, I think it's next… _Yo guys, where are you? Fighting Dragons alone used to be fun but now it isn't. Called the farmhouse but no answer. What gives? Casey_. And then _May 23rd, Hey guys, still can't reach you and it doesn't look like you've been home. I'm taking Klunk back to my place,_ \- is she amazing or what? – _I can tell he misses you. So do I. Call, or just come by, you're always welcome. April_ _._ " Mike leaned over. "Are you listening?"

Don grunted.

"Come on, it's good news."

"Really? Find the note that says April has Master Splinter. _That_ would be good news."

"Donnie, that doesn't even make sense. Have you seen April come in and leave a note? I haven't."

"Maybe he was thrown into a different branch of the time tunnel. Maybe he got back months ahead of us, and he's with April right now, drinking tea and waiting for us."

Mike riffled excitedly through the notes. "You think so?"

"It's hypothetical, Mike. Viral was in _control_ of that blast. Wherever Master Splinter is, it isn't any place we would _like_ him to be."

"Oh." Mike straightened out the papers and turned to the next one. "So. _June 4th, Still no sign of you guys. Really hope you're not in trouble. Threw out your perishables and put some canned goods in the pantry. April. June 17th, Guys, been beating up every Dragon and Foot goon I can find and they all say they haven't seen you. Not gonna stop looking though! Casey. July 1st, Is it something I did? I'm so sorry. I miss you guys a lot and hope you're safe. Please please call me. April. P.S., Klunk is fine_." He leaned over again. "Can I call her?"

Don sighed. "Landline is out and I think the shell cell relay is down. Gonna take a while to –"

"Payphone?"

"Don't go out."

"Leo and Raph went out!"

"Well, I told them not to…"

"I don't know why –"

"Mike, don't. I'm not in the mood."

"Fine, be that way." He shook out the notes and continued. " _August 20th, Karai showed up at the store last week, demanding to know where you guys are. I told her I didn't know but I'm not sure she believed me. I waited to make sure I wasn't being followed and then I came here. Place looks okay… at least I know she doesn't have you_. Um…" He paused. "This next one's in some weird code…"

"Let me see." Don stuck his foot out and Mike inserted the note between his brother's toes.

"Can you read it?"

"Maybe. I'll work on it later."

"Okay, next one, no date… _Hey guys, guess what? There's this new dojo by my house and I signed up for karate lessons! When you guys get back, we can kick even more bad guy butt! Can't wait, Casey_."

"He's going to hurt himself one of these days."

"You think he'll learn anything about being stealthy?"

"Casey? Never."

"Yeah, not likely. _September 28th, Dear Donnie_ – ooh, she likes you! – _Your power is on the blink. Tried to fix it but not much luck. Think you have a rat problem, no offense to Master Splinter_."

Don laughed. "No kidding, April. You take your eyes off them for one second…"

"But you can fix it, right?"

"If I don't electrocute myself to death first."

"Don't do that."

"Trying not to."

"Good. Um. _November 3rd, Still nothing. I keep looking… how long until I have to believe you guys are_ – and then it stops. There's no more."

"Hm."

"That's it? 'Hm'?"

"Umm… yeah. Just 'hm'."

Mike stood up. "You going to eat anything?"

"Not hungry."

"I'll make something, you'll like it…"

"Don't touch anything electrical. Or the stove."

"You can _not_ be serious."

"Be my guest, Mike, set the kitchen on fire…"

"Okay, I get the point." He took a step. "Sure you're okay in there?"

"Fine, Mike."

"All right…" He headed off to see if there was anything in the kitchen that could be eaten uncooked.

Don looked around at the frayed and disconnected wires. He wasn't fine. He wouldn't be fine until he had his father back.


	6. Notes from the Kitchen Table - Part 2

By total coincidence, the two halves of this two-shot have exactly the same word count. This second part was supposed to be two words longer, but there does not seem to be a word in the English language that expressed exactly what I needed it to. The missing word throws off the rhythm of a particular sentence, and it bugs me to this day.

* * *

 **Notes from the Kitchen Table (Part 2)**

"I just don't get it."

"I _know_ , Raph."

Don tweaked a wire.

"Guys? We're back."

"Food in five!" Mike shouted from the kitchen.

Three seconds pause.

"Donnie?"

He squeezed his eyes closed, resisted the urge to make something explode. (Always an effective method of getting his brothers to back off for a while.) "In here."

Leo and Raph drifted to the opening of the crawlspace, some kind of gravity drawing them close to another family member.

 _Where was that three hours ago?_

"You know we've been gone a year?" Raph said, directing his voice into the tunnel.

"Yeah, and?" Don replied blandly.

Raph seemed caught off-guard by Don's lack of surprise, but he went on anyway. "And nothing's changed."

Leo sighed and walked away.

"You were expecting a welcome-back party?" Don asked sarcastically.

"More like a – I dunno – a while-you-were-out notice. A mess to clean up. _Something_."

Don looked at his nearly-empty tube of sealant, and said nothing.

"I mean, we spend all our time trying to keep stuff from getting totally outta control, then we go on vacation for a year, and when we come back _nothing's happened_. Earth ain't been conquered by aliens, real or fake. Dragons and Foot are still on the same turf. None of the Shredders have taken over New York."

Don's eyes flickered.

"It's like – what's the point?"

"I told you not to go out," Don said quietly.

"I didn't _know_ there wasn't any –"

Don sat up fast, banging his head on the ceiling of the crawlspace. In frustration, he hurled the tube of sealant out of the tunnel. "And what if there had been? What would you have done? We can't _deal_ with that right now, Raph!" He did a kind of awkward sliding crabwalk out of the narrow passage, not caring that his legs and shoulders scraped against the rough brick. "The city can go to hell," he said, savagely ripping away the cables that had gotten looped around his wrist. "All I care about is getting Master Splinter back."

"Geez, okay," Raph said, standing out of the way as Don got up from the floor. "We were just doin' some recon."

"Food!" Mike shouted from the kitchen.

"I'm not _hungry!_ " Don shouted back, and stalked towards his lab.

Footsteps behind him, hands on his shoulders. He whirled and pushed Raph away. "Leave me alone."

"See, now I'm remembering why Leo and I went out." Raph crossed his arms. "You're not exactly giving off want-people-around vibes."

Don turned and kept walking. "I have work to do."

"So let us _help_."

Don didn't answer.

Raph followed him into the lab, taking up a position against the wall. "You're doing the it's-my-fault-so-I-gotta-fix-it thing, aren't you. How'd that work out for Leo?" He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Oh yeah, not so good."

Don threw himself into the chair, and let it roll over to Serling. The robot had powered himself down until the electricity was fixed and it was safe for him to recharge. "I need to download Serling's memory banks to a hard drive that predates him by a hundred years. I don't think you know how to do that kind of thing."

"Yeah, Don, 'cause I'm totally useless and incompetent and I couldn't _possibly_ know how to do anything constructive."

Something pulsed in Don's forehead. "What do you _want_ , Raph?"

Raph moved to the other wall, next to Serling. "Gonna say it one more time, Don: _Let. Us. Help._ "

"Just stay out of my way."

Raph smacked Don in the side of the head, nearly rocking him off his chair. "We're gonna get 'im back, Donnie! And when we do, I'm _not_ gonna tell 'im I sat around twiddlin' my thumbs while _you_ did all the work!"

" _You don't know how!_ "

Raph hit him again, and then they were brawling on the floor, rolling around and pounding each other's faces in.

When they broke apart, Don was faintly surprised that Leo and Mike _weren't_ standing in the doorway.

"I can fix the wiring," Raph said, when he had his breath back.

Don wiped away the blood seeping from his nostrils. "You think you can get your fat head in the crawlspace?"

Raph reached over and whacked him on the shoulder.

"Okay," Don said. "It's yours. When you're done, go out and get me the most high-tech computer equipment you can find. I don't care where you steal it from."

Raph blinked. "You serious?"

"Let me repeat." Don cleared his throat. "I don't _give a crap_ where you steal it from."

Raph regarded him for a moment. "We're gonna get 'im back."

"I am going to break laws of physics to get him back," Don said. "Breaking city ordinances is just a warm-up."

They sat, breathing and bleeding.

"I'm sorry," Don said. "For everything."

"I'm not mad atcha."

Don raised a brow.

Raph sighed. "Yeah, okay, I'm mad atcha. But mostly 'cause you're bein' an idiot and that's not _you_." He lifted his head. "You're smarter than this, Donnie. You _know_ we get more stuff done when we work together. Try to give us a _little_ credit for not bein' morons."

"It's going to be hard," Don said. "I don't have time to teach you everything."

"I get that," Raph said. "But some things we _can_ do." He stretched out his leg and poked Don with his toe. "Like makin' sure you eat food."

"I'm not hungry."

"Hey." Another toe-poke. "What did I say about bein' an idiot?"

A smile crept onto Don's face, and he didn't have the energy to fight it. "What do you think Mike made?"

"Oh, god. I'm gonna try not to look."

Raph got to his feet, and offered Don a hand.

As his brother pulled him up, Don couldn't help thinking that the immediate future looked just a little bit brighter.


	7. Leap

Want to know one of my secrets of writing? Here it is: I write the entire story before I publish any of it.

At least, I try to. Sometimes I publish a story because I think it's done, and then it turns out there's more of it. _Notes from the Kitchen Table_ , _Leap_ and its sequel, and the story in the following chapters all fall into that category. I thought they were one-shots, and then they turned out to have a part two.

* * *

 **Leap**

Splinter slinks over the edge of the roof, crouches in the shadows, and waits for his sons to join him.

Three of them come quickly, silently, and still themselves in the darkness with the ease of long practice. The fourth lingers at the top of the fire escape, looking down, his eyes wide.

 _Always distracted, always overlooking the efficient in favor of the "awesome", and yet, when called to task, always so effortlessly capable._

"Michelangelo!" Splinter hisses.

The youngest split-vaults the parapet and drops to his knees in its umbrage. "This is too cool!" he whispers.

"What are we doing, Sensei?" Leonardo asks.

 _The full-hearted student, devoted to learning and learning well. Not the strongest or the most coordinated, rarely earning the honor of being First to master a skill, but he approaches his studies with the right spirit and absorbs ninjutsu into his soul._

"Tonight we must learn an important skill," Splinter says, and his eldest's focus intensifies another notch. "Tonight we must learn to fly."

"That's silly," Donatello says. "Turtles can't fly."

 _The eternal questioner, the devil's advocate, the one who presses the teacher to justify his own expertise. By making lessons that much more difficult, he makes them that much better._

"They can, if they will listen to rats who know how," Splinter says, a gentle reprimand. He rises to his knees and points to the far side of the roof. "Do you see that other building?"

They look, and nod.

"Go and tell me how far from this roof to that one," he instructs them.

Raphael gets up first, trots fearlessly to the edge, and measures the gap with his eyes. "Six feet," he reports.

"Can you jump that far?" Splinter asks.

" _I_ can," Raphael boasts.

 _The second-oldest, constantly being shown up by the smarter third brother, the more athletic fourth brother, and so constantly, desperately, striving to be better, to earn his place in the family. He is still learning that failure on the first try is not true failure, but an important step on the road to mastery, a step that often leads to better skill than immediate success._

"Me too!" Michelangelo puts in.

"We all can," Leonardo says.

"Who will do it first?" Splinter asks.

"I did it first," Raphael says, and the others nod, looking at Splinter as though they can't believe he forgot.

 _He hasn't forgotten. Chalk marks on the floor, slowly drawing away from one another, and Raphael always pushing to the front of the line, stealing the opportunity to be crowned First, and taking full advantage every time. He was First to three feet, and four, and six, and eight._

"You did it first on the floor," Splinter says, putting his hand briefly on Raphael's head. "I am asking who will do it first over the air."

Leonardo's eyes go wide, his lingering unease with heights visible in them.

 _He challenged them to jump the increasing distances, now from one chair to another, introducing the additional difficulty of a small landing space. Raphael was First again. Leonardo was a late Fourth, being too cautious, then overcompensating. "Not yet," he mumbled to himself after each miss, echoing his father's phrase for an unsuccessful attempt. "Next time," he encouraged himself, and after many next times he finally learned how to gauge the jump._

"That's dangerous," Donatello says matter-of-factly.

"You're a wuss," Raphael informs him.

Michelangelo tugs on his father's hand. "Show us how?"

 _Always the visual learner, watching closely and then copying, often insisting on adding his own unnecessary flair, because "it's cooler that way."_

Splinter stands and leads his sons to the edge. "Watch me," he says, and in one powerful spring he has cleared the alley and landed on the other roof.

His sons confer quietly for a moment. Then Raphael backs up a few steps, takes a running start, and launches himself into space.

He lands in a solid three-point, pops up, and shouts "First!" Then, realizing his mistake, he covers his mouth, uncovers it, and whispers, "First?"

Splinter nods. "First." He looks across the gap and beckons his other sons.

 _First is something to brag about, but Second and Third and even Fourth are accomplishments too, worth working for, and always carrying an abundance of praise._

Leonardo comes next, facing his fear like a physical enemy. He fumbles his landing but recovers quickly, announcing "Second!" in a muted voice.

Michelangelo follows in short order, sailing through the air like he really does have wings, trailing a "Woohoo!" behind him.

Which leaves Donatello.

 _The student who analyzes, who overthinks, who relies on his brain to keep track of the right moves and never trusts his body to remember and react for him. It slows him down, fills him with doubt, and keeps him mired in martial theory while his brothers gain an easy familiarity with the physical arts._

He paces anxiously along the edge of the roof, looking across at his family, then down at the sidewalk, then back at the fire escape.

"Come on, Donnie!" Leonardo calls to him.

"You can do it!" Michelangelo encourages.

"Hurry up already!" Raphael stage-whispers.

Donatello fidgets, then backs up, runs, and pushes off with his toes. He seems to hang motionless for one endless moment.

And then they all realize he's falling short.

There's panic all over Donatello's face as he stretches out his arms, trying desperately to catch the rim of the roof. His fingers rake through thin air, and then Splinter dives forward, reaching for him, seizing his wrists with fingers like iron pincers.

They fall backwards onto the roof.

 _He could have lost him right then, could have seen him break on the unforgiving pavement. That would have been true failure, his own failure, failure as a father. He has no one to compete against for the title of First. He is completely alone, and fighting just to do the best he can. In his world there isn't always a next time._

Donatello is breathing fast and shallow, clinging to his father, his eyes unblinking.

"Not yet," he's mumbling. "Not yet, not yet, not yet."

"No," Splinter says softly, holding Donatello against him, unable to let him go. "Not yet."

One day Donatello will make the leap, and be Fourth.

But not tonight.

Not yet.


	8. Lean

Why do I write the entire story before publishing any of it? It's the fault of my first TMNT chapter fic, _Revelation_.

Late in that story, I came to a scene in which two characters revisited a conversation they had had in an earlier chapter. In that second version of the conversation, one of the character's lines were the same as before, and the other's were different. And both versions of the conversation had to make sense. And because I had already published that earlier chapter, the first character's lines literally had to stay the same. I couldn't alter them to make this concept work.

It was awful. And that's why since then, I don't publish stories until they're done.

* * *

 **Lean**

Splinter always kept track, in a general way, of how his sons spent their time. He believed that balance was not only a physical skill, but an attribute of the spirit. Like health and emotional well-being, it needed to be carefully tended.

And so, the same way that he nursed his sons when they were sick, and hugged them when they were sad, he nudged them back into alignment whenever their spirit leaned too far in any direction. When Michelangelo spent too much time on games, Splinter would push him gently towards quieter, more productive pursuits. When Leonardo became too fixated on practicing the skills they learned in morning training, Splinter would pull him back to his center, sending him to engage in creative activities, or to play with his brothers.

The thing about balance, was that it could never be perfected. One could learn to watch oneself, to shift back towards the middle, but the position of equilibrium could never be maintained.

And everyone carried their own, uneven load.

Splinter sighed. This son was the most difficult. His natural balance always led him away from the dojo, away from what ought to be the center of their lives.

Whenever Splinter tallied up the number of hours his sons spent in training, aside from their required morning practice, this son always had the fewest. He tilted away from all things connected with the martial arts, and only the strongest shove could move him back in that direction.

"Donatello."

Donatello looked up from the book he was reading, his face all alertness and interest. He was never angry to be interrupted, always curious about each fresh distraction.

"I have not seen you practicing this week." It was simply a statement, not yet an application of force.

"I can read these books now!" Donatello told him cheerfully. "I gotta find out what they say."

Splinter surveyed the floor. Donatello was surrounded by half a dozen books, all of them thick, with dense text. One of them was obviously a dictionary. "They will say the same thing next week," Splinter reminded him. "And your skills will also be the same next week, if you do not practice what I have been teaching you."

Donatello frowned. "But... but my - my _smart_ will be the same next week, if I don't read these."

"Donatello." A little more sharply, now. "You must attend to your training."

"But I don't _like_ it," Donatello said in frustration. "I'm not _good_ at it." He stabbed his finger at one of the pages. "I'm good at this. I like this. I wanna do it all day."

"There is nothing that you should be doing _all day_ ," Splinter said. "I am not asking you to give up reading, and spend all your time in the dojo. I am asking you to do both, in moderation." He knelt, placing himself at Donatello's level. "A compromise."

"Compromise?" Donatello pursed his lips into his thinking expression, so intent for such a small child. "Okay. How about I read less, and play with Legos more?"

Splinter's heart felt heavy. It was not that Donatello didn't understand the concept of balance; it was simply that his nature abhorred all things that led to violence, and so, by extension, he loathed the practice of martial arts. Splinter had tried to conceal the true purpose of ninjutsu from his sons, to present it as a game, a challenge, but Donatello had seen right through his ploys. He recognized the violence in their lives, but did not yet accept it as necessary to their survival. Even though Splinter trained his sons out of love, so that they would be able to protect themselves, it hurt him deeply to force the knowledge on one who so clearly did not want it.

Splinter shook his head. "My son... you must practice."

Donatello struck at his book, shifting his aim at the last second to hit the floor instead of the precious tome. It was an agility gained from the training he underwent so unwillingly. " _Why?_ I hate it! I don't want to!"

"Donatello," Splinter said, and waited for his son to look at him. "I do not enjoy making you do things you hate. I would much rather see you read and build and create to your heart's content. Those are worthy pursuits. But you know why the study of ninjutsu is important to us as well." He shifted some of the books aside, so that he could slide across the floor to sit next to his downcast son, and put his arm around him. "If our lives were otherwise, I would not make you do this. But we cannot change our lot, and we must... ?"

"Accept what we cannot change," Donatello said dully.

"That is right." Splinter squeezed the small Turtle's shoulder, and Donatello curled up closer against his father's side. "You know you must do this. You know you cannot learn it from a book. How can I make it more bearable for you?"

Donatello was silent for some time. He understood. He was not an unreasonable child. In a moment, he would offer a compromise that his father could accept.

"More... more tumbling?" he said tentatively. "More hiding, more blocks? No... no attacking."

Splinter nodded. "All right." It was not a training regimen that he would be satisfied with forever, was not an approach that would give Donatello all the skills Splinter wanted him to learn, but for now, it would do. He looked down at his son. "Will you give me one hour every afternoon? We will practice defense and evasion. All the rest of the time, you may read." He really would have preferred that Donatello engage in hobbies other than reading for at least part of the day, but compromise meant that each side had to give something. He was not an unreasonable father.

"Okay," Donatello mumbled.

"Very good." Splinter rubbed Donatello's shoulder again. "Remember, my son, ninjutsu teaches the value of least-harm. There is no shame in not attacking."

"I don't wanna fight," Donatello sniffed, into Splinter's robe. "Ever."

"That is well," Splinter replied. "I would be more concerned if you went looking for unnecessary battles."

Donatello was quiet a little while longer. "Do I gotta do it now?"

"Today," Splinter said firmly. Then he relented, adding a little more to his side of the compromise. "When you have finished your chapter. I will be waiting." He uncurled his arm from around his son, and stood up.

"Father..." Donatello said.

Splinter paused. "Yes?"

Donatello thought for a moment before asking his question. "We'll get to stop someday, right?"

"Studying ninjutsu?"

Donatello nodded. "Fighting."

Splinter reflected - on the question, on their lives, on his gentle son. He gathered all these things, balanced them against one another, and formed his reply.

"I am looking forward to it."


	9. Inside - Part 1

This is a piece of my handcanon that doesn't play nicely with any story that has an actual plot. Still, it needed to come out somewhere. The result has never had a title, which maybe is fitting.

* * *

Donatello tends to go Inside.

Inside his own head, that is.

Leonardo will come upon him, sitting in a chair, or leaning against a wall, or standing in the middle of a room, and staring at his hands, or looking blankly into the middle distance, or rotating some small object in front of his empty gaze.

Silent. Vacant.

If Leo calls him, then after two tries ( _or three, or sometimes four_ ), Don will jerk, blink, smile. "What is it?" he'll say.

("What were you thinking about?" Leo will ask, sometimes, and "Nothing," Don will say, or "Just a theory." Other times, slow words, trying to build a strong circling fence around his ideas, to corral them and tame them, so his non-genius brothers can approach them, pat them on the nose, pretend to understand.)

Always, in those frozen, unseeing moments, it's like something has stolen Donnie away, taken him to some other world and left his untenanted body as a placeholder, _a bookmark, remember you were here_. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, an hour.

And if Leo is quiet, Don will settle back into himself, squint, frown. "Hi, Leo," he'll say. "How long were you standing there?"

("Not long," Leo will say. It seems like ages, sometimes, but that's not important. He would wait forever, for his Donatello to return to him.)

When Leo asks him ( _where do you go, what do you see_ ), Don will say ( _beautiful places_ ) that he likes it.

("Why do you ask?" Don will say, _with a tilt of his head, gentle wrinkles on his brow._ "No reason," Leo will say, because he wants (aches) for his brothers to be happy, and so he won't do anything to take Donatello's refuge away from him.)

And when Leo finds him like that ( _an outline, a faint tracing, an edge without a middle_ ), he'll sit or lean or stand next to him, watching over him (staying with him, being as close as he can _but so far away_ ) while Don looks through him.

He'll hold himself still and wait _for as long as it takes_ , but it's hard (unbearable) to see his beloved, brilliant brother _an open-eyed statue, a backwards ghost_ caught in time, tangled in himself.

It's hard for Leo to be patient, to not call or touch or shake, while Don is Inside.

Because he's terrified that, one day, Donnie won't come back Out.


	10. Inside - Part 2

Aside from this story being an unexpected part two, it is also one of my stories for which people often ask if there will be a sequel. The answer is no. Like _The Lab or the Darkness_ , the whole value of the story is in the ambiguity of its ending. Writing a sequel would only spoil the fun of imagining what _you_ think happens next.

* * *

He's been like this for three months.

Mike found him first, standing on the bridge, staring into the water, tracing little ripples with his fingers.

Two hours later, he was still there. And after dinner, still there.

("Donnie?" Mike asked gently. "You hungry?" No answer. They packed up the leftovers, put them in the fridge.)

At the end of the evening, still there. They moved him to the couch, and even their touch didn't call him from his reverie. He walked when propelled, sat when Raph pressed down on his shoulders. The motion of his hands changed, his thumbs twitching as though he were wielding dual remote controls, and they thought he was coming out of it, but he just kept staring blankly at the darkened TVs, didn't respond when they called him.

In the morning, he was still there, silent, motionless, closed off. Leo carried him up to bed.

By the next day, he still hadn't come back to them. (Hadn't eaten. Hadn't drank. "You have to drink!" Mike pleaded, holding up a glass of water in front of his face, but Don wasn't reacting to anything anymore.)

"He'll dehydrate," Mike said, _because Don had certainly told them often enough_ , and after a desperate call to April, they slid an IV needle into the back of his hand.

Shortly after that, he soiled the bed.

That's when they knew it was bad. Donnie could forget to eat and sleep even when he wasn't in one of his trances, but he never, _ever_ failed to make it to the bathroom.

They dug out an old dish they never used, and pressed it into service as a bedpan.

That was three months ago.

* * *

Leo weighs the half-empty IV bag in his palm. Another few hours. He lifts the blanket, checks the bedpan, pulls the soft fabric back across Donatello's chest, tucking it close in under the curve of his shell. It's getting harder to keep Donnie warm enough, now that New York is settling into winter. Raph has been futzing with the heating system - he's a competent mechanic, but he just doesn't have Donatello's genius for getting machines to do exactly what he wants them to.

"How much longer?"

Leo doesn't answer.

"Leo."

He startles, realizes he's hearing an actual voice, and not an echo of an argument he's had too many times lately.

("As long as it takes," Leo always replies. ( _He would wait forever, for his Donatello to return to him._ ) " _How long?_ " Raph will press him.)

"Please wait a little longer," Leo says mechanically.

(It could be tomorrow. It could be in a year. It could be never. "I don't know," Leo will say softly, when Raph demands answers he can't give.)

Raph moves into his line of sight, gestures to the hollow body in the bed. "He doesn't need you, bro. Me and Mike and Master Splinter – we do. You gotta come back."

Leo smoothes a corner of blanket. "He needs me."

"Not _all the time_."

("He's a vegetable," Raph has told him, more than once. "Let him go. He wouldn't want to live like that." But Donatello's expression is serene, more happy than neutral, and so Leo knows his brother is still in there, enjoying the beautiful vistas of his mind. Every time he sees his little brother's peaceful face, it renews his resolve to stay with him, to watch over him, so Raphael can't come and steal Donnie away to a world he can never come back from.)

Raph moves again, makes it hard for Leo to avoid looking at him. "Have you even seen Mikey? He's falling apart." He seeks Leo's gaze, can't find it. "Bro –" He puts his hand on Leo's arm, and his fingers go too far around. "You can't help him. He's gone. You're spending all your time trying to get him back, and meanwhile you're losing everything else. _Let him go._ "

Leo doesn't answer.

A little shake. "Leo."

Leo closes his eyes. Eventually, Raph goes away.

* * *

It's been seven months now.

His life has become a narrow, suffocating tunnel, and he can't see any light at the end. Change the IV bag. Empty the bedpan. Turn Don. Wash him. Take his temperature.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Mike has gone silent and red-eyed, working without rest to take care of the whole family as Leo takes care of Don, picking up the slack for two brothers, _who are right there, and so far away_.

Raph is out a lot lately, doing all the scavenging, venting his frustration on any wrongdoer unfortunate enough to cross his path, hanging with Casey and stumbling home at four in the morning loud and reeking of alcohol.

Splinter is no longer training them. There was no announcement, no official cessation. They just don't have the energy or the will to keep doing it, and so it has fallen by the wayside, another unmarked grave in the cemetery of all they have lost since Donnie faded.

Raph was right.

 _Just a little longer._

* * *

Seven and a half months.

Don shifts, but Leo doesn't pay much attention. This has happened before. It's only ever followed by Don sighing and settling back into his waking dream.

Leo remains slumped in his chair, not lifting his gaze from the floor.

The blankets rustle again, and there's a funny sniffing noise.

"Hi, Leo," says a soft voice. "How long were you sitting there?"

Leo closes his eyes, and weeps.


	11. Six Drabbles

Some stories can be told not only in one part, but in a mere 100 words. Here is a collection of six drabbles, of unknown original posting date.

 _Bonus note: Further research reveals that these drabbles were originally posted in March 2009, July 2009, August 2009, January 2010, March 2010, and December 2011, respectively._

* * *

They're gone.

They're dead.

And even though she loved them like brothers, part of her is sighing with relief.

She's finally free from the worry, the fear. She can finally put down the burden of responsibility, the things they asked of her, the things they needed but didn't ask. She can disentangle herself from the suffocating web of secrets, and just be herself again. She can have her whole life aboveground, in the open, in the light, for all to see.

A part of her is dead.

But another part, bound and gagged for so long, is very much alive.

* * *

It's the longest six seconds.

Rewind. You try to figure out what pushed you. You try to figure out how you got here.

Skip ahead. Back to now. You're falling.

Time slows. You try to catch yourself, but every ledge is just out of reach.

You look down. You try to see where you're going to land, how you can aim. You pick your spot.

You twist around. You look up. Horrified faces, frozen. A shout racing after you. You're hovering. You have plenty of time. You twist again, cat-like. You bend your elbows and knees.

You hit.

It hurts.

* * *

Splinter has seen this before.

The distancing, conscious and unconscious. The looking-down-at. The requests that sound a little more like orders, day by day.

This is not his Donatello. Not his soft-spoken, unargumentative son, who is listened to because he says his piece calmly and then stops talking.

This is someone different.

This is someone very like Leonardo.

Splinter wonders whether Leonardo really is that person, or if that is simply the person Leonardo has become, because the mantle of leadership has lain heavily on him so long, twisting him beneath its weight.

As Donatello now twists, day by day.

* * *

Raphael is blessed to be one of those people who can get by on very little sleep.

Donatello is not.

But for both of them, morning training starts at ten o'clock.

When Raph comes down, it's only by the new injuries or fresh bandages that you can tell he was up late the night before.

But with Don, it's the bleary eyes and dragging footsteps that let you know he was up late too, delaying much-needed sleep to wait for Raph, hurting himself to help a brother, never caring that it means Raphael will always beat him in morning training.

* * *

Casey offered to become blood brothers, one night.

"We never set much store by blood," Raph said. He shifted on the worn parapet of the old building, turning to look at the man sitting beside him. "You're one of us, Jones. You've already bled enough to prove it."

"Still," Casey said. "Would be cool if we could be bros for real."

Raph was silent a moment. "You know," he said. "Yer mom's widowed, and Splinter's single…"

The mental image was stomach-churningly awful, but it was worth it for the expression of horror that crossed Casey's face a split second later.

* * *

"I am the Battle Nexus champion! The greatest warrior in the multiverse!"

Four turtles stared at their rat master in shocked silence.

"I have never said that before," Splinter said. He nodded to Michelangelo. "I now see why you enjoy it so much, my son."

And he walked away, still addressing an indeterminate audience. "That is correct! I am undefeatable!"

"I can't believe that just happened," Mike said, when he had recovered his voice.

His brothers watched him expectantly.

Two seconds of silence. Then: "I'm a third-generation Battle Nexus champion!" Mike shouted. "My _whole family_ is undefeatable!"

Three turtles groaned.


	12. One Double-Drabble

This story needed exactly 200 words to tell. It is one of my rare 2k12 fics, and was written in August 2013.

* * *

 _You must complete your mission, no matter what you have to sacrifice._

 _Or who._

 _Or who._

 _Or who._

It echoes in your panicked breathing.

 _Don't panic._

But the Technodrome is sinking.

How much breathable air is inside a giant alien death sphere? _Donnie would know._

But you sent him to safety, along with your other brothers, and the warmth of that thought in your chest sustains you even as the air empties from your lungs.

 _Stop it._ There must be hours worth of air trapped in here with you. Maybe days.

You wander the ship, just in case there's a way out. Just in case this isn't the end.

...

It is the end, and it does take days. And then hours, hours of lying there gasping, drowning in air as whatever makes air useful to breathe runs out.

You saved the world. You saved your brothers. You struggle to figure out which is more important. You might be able to answer, if it wasn't so damn hard just to stay conscious.

The last thing you can hold on to is their faces as the pod sped away. They'll be all right.

You smile, and breathe out the echoes.

 _Leonardo..._


	13. His Own Grave

Everybody has their favorite Turtle. Mine has always been Donatello. He is, after all, objectively the best Turtle [1]. But I try to make some room in my stories for the other brothers too. This chapter and the next, like the last, focus on Leonardo. If you like Raph or Mike, don't worry - they're coming up next.

[1] Rosenbaum, R. (2014). _Raise Some Shell: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles._ See, it's a fact.

* * *

 **His Own Grave**

Leo is standing on his own grave.

The dirt is packed solid under his feet. There's nothing in this grave. Nothing but broken hopes and dead dreams.

And yet his name is on the marker.

(Mike, embracing him until Leo is sure their plastrons will fuse together. "I knew you'd come back. I knew. I told them.")

They had waited for him, as his stay in Central America dragged on past the allotted year. But this time, as two years slipped towards three, they had given up.

("Mike kept asking us to wait," Don said. "But the danger, the probability that... We needed closure, Leo.")

They'd taken him to this secluded place, and backed away, leaving him to think about life and home and family, and to decide what he wants to do next.

(Raph's stony eyes, his terse sentences. "You're dead to me. Next time, don't come back at all.")

He rests his hand on the carved wooden post. There's no epitaph. Just his name. He tries to imagine something fitting.

(Splinter, sitting in the kitchen, the kettle on, as though he's been waiting up. "Welcome home, my son.")

 _Hamato Leonardo, Wayward Son, Absent Brother_

He's not needed here. His spirit has been lain to rest, and his body can still do good in the world.

He says a prayer for the departed, and walks away.


	14. A Story I Will Never Write

Some of my readers think I have an endless supply of brilliant fic ideas. This is an illusion. The truth is that I have an endless supply of fic ideas, and I am pretty good at not writing the bad ones.

For example, I am never going to write the story in which the Turtles are living openly and all have significant others; I'm just going to enjoy playing with it in my head. I did, however, write this one tiny piece of it, which amused me too much not to share.

* * *

Hamato Leonardo, mutant turtle, first-time father, stood in the aisle of the grocery store. Before his eyes, tiny jars sat on shelves that seemed to stretch to infinity. A red plastic basket dangled from his hand, and hot panic was rising in his throat.

 _"Baby food?" he'd said incredulously. "Babies need food?"_

 _"Yes, Leo," she'd told him. "Babies eat."_

 _"But I thought -"_

 _"Thought later," she'd said, pressing his wallet into his hand. "Store now."_

What he'd _thought_ , was that mammals had the whole baby-feeding thing pretty much sewn up. What he'd _thought_ , was that baby mammals satisfied all their nutritional needs by drinking their mother's milk, until the day when they suddenly turned into miniature adult mammals, and ate whatever other adults of their species ate.

It had never occurred to him that there was an in-between stage. It had never occurred to him that humans manufactured consumables specifically for infants undergoing such a liminal period.

That idea was staggering enough. But the sheer _quantity_ of the stuff...

He gave up on logical approaches to the task, and grabbed for whatever looked colorful. Babies liked things that were colorful. He shoveled the jars haphazardly into his basket and escaped for the relative familiarity of the check-out counter.

It was late at night, and the bored overaged bachelor at the checkstand scanned his purchases without comment. It wasn't like there was anyone left in America who didn't know who he was, who didn't know that he was living with a woman not his wife and a baby he had absolutely no claim to.

He dithered a moment when the register jockey fired a question at him; opted for plastic. Paid with paper. Left on foot.

 _Baby food._

Sometimes he thought it would have been easier to just stay in the sewer.


	15. Michelangelo's Story

What can I say about 2k3 Michelangelo? Is he an uncelebrated genius with vast insight and prodigious natural talent for ninjutsu? Or is he a lazy whiner who sometimes gets lucky in a fight? Reasonable minds differ.

Though I have a set of short stories that focus on the little brother ( _The Domino Effect_ , _The Devil's Luck_ , and _The Decline and Fall_ , which I collectively refer to as The Mike Trilogy), none of my chapter fics center on Michelangelo. That's because I haven't written _Parsimony_ yet. If I ever do, it will be a little something like this.

* * *

The assault was going on so quietly that Mike almost missed it as he leaped over the alley.

But the flash of a knife caught his eye, and he turned back, peering over the edge.

Seconds later he was landing, purposely loud, behind the attacker.

"Boo," Mike said, when the guy turned.

Sometimes that's all it takes.

The girl was already pretty badly beaten. Mike knelt beside her and reached for a pulse. Fast, uneven.

He called 911.

In the space before the sirens, he tried some first aid, wrapping the worst of her wounds with precious bandages from his own supply. The blood didn't stop.

When the alley lit red and blue, he disappeared.

His work was done. On to the next victim.

He spends his nights like this, helping people, but only up to the line that separates the darkness from the light. After that it's up to the EMTs, the police, the doctors, with their white scrubs or shiny badges or gleaming instruments.

They're heroes too. And Mike likes to think that they recognize their partners from the other side of the line, and that at the end of the day, when another life is saved and another mess cleaned up, they whisper "thank you" into the shadows.

That's all it takes. For him, only blood and screaming. But somewhere, a life saved and a "thank you" in the dark. And he finds the strength to keep going.

By the time he got home that night, the girl had already been pushed to the back of his mind, with every other person he'd ever helped. Just another bruised and frightened face.

Two days later, the girl died in the hospital.

It didn't make the news, and Mike doesn't read the obituaries.

So he doesn't know about the one the darkness took.

But in knowing that he pushes people towards the light, in never letting himself look back to see whether they reached it, he finds strength.


	16. Raphael's Story

No doubt about it - Raphael is a fantastic character. Stories are always built on conflict, and you don't even need an excuse for Raphael to get in a fight with somebody. This is why it is much easier to write about Raphael going out and having an adventure than it is to write about, say, Donatello going out and having an adventure.

However, to mutilate a Master Splinter phrase, just because Raphael is a fantastic character, does not mean he is a fantastic person. Of the brothers, Raph is the one I would least want to hang out with.

* * *

The first one says: "Everyone know the plan?"

The second one says: "Yes."

The third one says: "... I forgot."

The first sighs. "Weren't you listening when I explained it?"

The third fidgets. "Well, yeah, but then you just kept talking, and I kinda got distracted."

The second has taken the front panel off the external security box. "Look, it's simple. You go in, you get the thing, you get out."

"But I don't know what it looks like," the third says in a small voice.

The first has been acting as look-out while the second works. "Maybe you should just stand guard," he says to the third,"while _we_ go in."

"No!" the third squeals. "Don't leave me!" He attaches himself to the second's arm. "I can find it - tell me again what it looks like."

"Don't do that while I have my hands in an electrical box," the second says.

The third leaps away. "Tell me how to find it!"

The second pulls a wire, then produces a folded piece of paper from somewhere unseen and gives it to the third. "These are the building schematics. I marked where the box will be, and wrote down the code that will be on the side of it." He smiles sardonically. "Do you need me to hold your hand?"

"No," the third says. He unfolds the schematics and begins studying them. The first comes to look over his shoulder, and the second goes back to disabling the alarms.

* * *

Watching the three Dragons, Raphael can't help thinking they're a lot like his brothers.

He won't enjoy this fight.


	17. Losing Odds

And finally, one more one-shot about Donatello, before moving on to a set of stories that take a more family-centered approach to everyone's favorite brothers.

* * *

 **Losing Odds**

Every time we help someone, we're playing a deadly lottery.

Eventually, that black ball is going to come up.

It's like this: people, after getting attacked and then getting rescued, have a lot of funny reactions.

Mostly it's the people who see too much, and think that we're monsters or demons or some horrible experiment escaped from a science lab.

Some of them just crouch against the wall and keep saying "Don't hurt me", just saying it to a different person. Some people run away, and some people shout obscenities.

All mostly harmless.

Some people throw a punch, and some people yell for help. Still not very dangerous. We're ninja. We can dodge. We can disappear.

Then there are the people who have weapons, and the people who call the police.

And the people who have cameras.

(I think there must be a word for "abject fear of having your picture taken", but I don't know what it is.)

Okay. So. What's the probability that a person we rescue will be one of _those?_

Assume that victims of street crime constitute a good random sampling of New Yorkers. (They probably don't, but if milk-production experts can assume a spherical cow, then I can certainly do this.) What percentage of New Yorkers will react like that?

I figure it's two kinds of people: Angry people, who use words like "freak" and "abomination", and who wouldn't like us even if we ended violent crime, solved world hunger, and cast a magic spell to make everybody rich and deliriously happy. And confused people, who get jumped in an alley and then, very understandably, have a really negative reaction to any stranger who tries to approach them.

Okay, one more kind: You can't rule out the possibility that the person in question will just be absolutely, up-the-creek insane, and not need any more reason than that.

So, getting back to the question... what percentage of New Yorkers are angry, confused, or crazy?

Ten percent?

Probably too high. We've helped a lot more than ten people, and we haven't gotten killed or captured yet.

One percent? One-tenth of a percent? One-hundredth of a percent?

I'll keep doing powers of -10. Tell me when to stop.

Yes, it's a Drake equation. Pick whatever number makes you feel good.

The thing is, it really doesn't matter. We keep going out and helping people. Even vanishingly small odds start to get larger as you approach them at breakneck speed.

One of these days, we're going to be in a lot of trouble.

Death is a situation that can't be mitigated or redressed, so I don't think about it. Instead, I think about what might happen if the authorities ever catch up to us.

Just for fun, I pretend that they overlook the part where we aren't human and don't have any rights.

I imagine they'll lock us up, do a little digging, and hit us with a long list of charges for theft, squatting, non-payment of taxes, gas-siphoning, and whatever it is that illegal immigrants get arrested and deported for. This is not counting all the violations we've racked up in connection with our crime-fighting activities.

We'll argue that we've already done our community service. The police will respond by adding thousand of counts of assault to the docket.

Conclusion: Really, really bad.

(Honestly, considering all that, I'm surprised that none of our enemies have arranged for us to be taken into legal custody. I guess it's good they're all egomaniacs who want to destroy us themselves.)

I've mentioned this to my brothers a few times, with the implication that it just might be justifiable to value our own safety over that of other people.

They just stare at me, as though they've never even imagined a world in which we don't go out and help people.

So I drop the subject, and they continue refusing to consider the possibility.

It's Russian roulette with an unknown number of guns containing an unknown number of bullets.

If I quit the game, am I responsible for the next person who shoots himself in the head?

Is that a good enough reason for me to keep spinning the gun?


	18. The Math Lesson

What's the best way to study a foreign language? Watch the dub of your favorite cartoon! I sure learned a lot watching 2k3 in Italian. After that, I wanted to attempt writing a fic in Italian. This chibi fic, which had been in my head for some time, seemed like the perfect candidate. It is my only TMNT story that is not in English – though I've included a version at the bottom that is.

Grazie mille a LaraPink777 per controllare la mia traduzione. Tutti gli errori che rimangono sono i miei.

Thank you so much to LaraPink777 for checking my translation. All errors that remain are mine.

* * *

 **La Lezione di Matematica**

"Siete sulla superficie," Splinter ha detto ai suoi piccoli figli, inginocchiandosi al tavolino, "e vedete cento soldati ninja nemici. Quanti ne deve sconfiggere ognuno di voi per vincere la battaglia?"

"Zero," Donatello ha risposto subito. "Non è mai necessario che combattiamo qualcuno. C'è sempre un modo migliore."

"No, uno," ha detto Michelangelo. "Poi tutti gli altri avranno paura di noi, e scapperanno!"

"Uno per ognuno di voi, forse," ha detto Raffaello. "Io voglio combattere gli altri novantasette!"

Splinter ha sorriso a ciascuno dei suoi figli. "E tu?" ha chiesto a Leonardo. "Cosa pensi?"

"Penso che ognuno di noi debba sconfiggere cinquanta soldati ninja nemici," ha risposto.

"Perchè?" Splinter ha chiesto.

"Perché se possiamo vedere cento ninja, devono essercene almeno altri cento che non possiamo vedere," Leonardo ha risposto.

Splinter ha annuito, soddisfatto, ma non avrebbe detto quale risposta fosse la migliore.

* * *

 **The Math Lesson**

"You are on the surface," Splinter said to his young sons, kneeling at the low table, "and you see one hundred enemy ninja. How many of them must each of you defeat in order to win the battle?"

"Zero," Donatello replied immediately. "We never have to fight anybody. There's always a better way."

"No, one," said Michelangelo. "Then all the others will be afraid of us, and they'll run away!"

"One for each of you, maybe," said Raphael. "I want to fight the other ninety-seven!"

Splinter smiled at each of his sons. "And you?" he asked Leonardo. "What do you think?"

"I think that each of us has to beat fifty enemy ninja," he replied.

"How so?" Splinter asked.

"Because if we can see a hundred ninja, there must be at least a hundred more of them that we can't see," Leonardo answered.

Splinter nodded, satisfied, but he wouldn't say which answer was the best.


	19. Heritage

Over the years, I've taken inspiration, advice, and criticism from many people. But this is my only story that is a true collaborative effort with another author. It was written with meganechan720, likely in late 2011.

* * *

 **Heritage**

He knows that he is not Hamato Yoshi.

And yet, in a sense, he is. This collection of memories is all that remains of the man, and if, the memories muse, the man is no more, do the memories take his place?

* * *

He remembers the pet rat. And yet it takes him some time to connect the memory to the being that has apparently inherited this memory sphere. At first they do not speak, but slowly, bit by bit, the memories become more and more real to the rat, and he begins to piece together the story of the rat, the ooze, and last of all, the turtles.

Ah, the turtles. The strangest part of the tale. The pet rat seeking vengeance on his former master's killer smacks of fate, but the addition of four baby turtles to the story is downright puzzling. Even more than puzzling, it is amusing to him to learn of the near-legendary status he apparently holds among these reptilian teenagers. Gradually he comes to learn of them as individuals seen through the eyes of their father (the knowledge that he is an unwitting grandfather is even more strange):

Leonardo, the leader, a steady boy torn between duty and fun, who chooses duty perhaps more often than he should. He is the strongest in his hero worship.

Raphael, the passionate, who reminds both his father and grandfather a little too much of Mashimi, but who proves again and again that whatever his failings, his loyalty to his family is the stronger force.

Michelangelo, the child, bringer of smiles. The memories of Yoshi are glad that such a happy presence exists in the dark underground where his only remaining family is forced to reside. Such brightness in filth reminds him a little of Tang Shen, a flower nurtured in mud.

Donatello, inventor, a peaceable warrior who seeks to protect his family through technology and defense, a sometimes imperfect melding of ancient ninja ways and modern science.

Though he has never met them, he feels he knows them like his own grandchildren.

* * *

He remembers the Utroms. He remembers Splinter, vaguely. He remembers the Shredder. But he cannot say he exactly remembers this memory sphere being made. He supposes it might have been the time he stepped into the memory chamber to learn the story of the alien race, crash-landed on Earth with no resources but salvaged parts and patience. They never said anything about salvaging his own memories, a sliver of his soul shaved off and placed in a glass container. The thing he can't figure out is how he remembers anything after that. As far as he can tell, he remembers everything up to a few weeks before his death, which means they had been collecting pieces of his soul all along. He is not sure if it is the lack of a body that makes him not care about this invasion of privacy, or simply the knowledge that he is dead and it hardly matters now, but he doesn't. He bears the Utroms no ill will. They were advanced, in culture and intelligence, and haughty in their advancement, but, with one major exception, benevolent. Even the waste from their research helped instead of harmed, and the memories think that the webs of fate binding himself, his adopted family, and the Utroms together are tightly woven indeed.

* * *

Michelangelo is the first to reach out to him.

Quite by accident, of course. A ninja should really not be that clumsy, but Michelangelo's mind was always far above the sewers he lived in, and this meant his body was often left unattended to muddle its way through life. In this case, it was making a mess of chores, which included cleaning Splinter's room. Since juggling was far more entertaining than dusting, that was what Michelangelo was doing. The sphere was clearly right for the job, so it got caught up in the ten-object circle until the turtle lost concentration and began dropping things. Picture frame, teacup, spoon, apple - all lost to the floor, but the sphere is clearly important, so the young one fumbles and catches it on his fingertips and _strains_ with all his might to keep it from falling - and this straining catches the memories' attention and they answer.

And Michelangelo nearly drops the sphere anyway in surprise.

"Master Yoshi?"

The memories hesitate, and then answer: "Hai."

The turtle stares at the orb in his hands for a long moment, and then breathes out in awed tones: "Cool!"

* * *

Michelangelo tells the story, complete with spooky sound effects, effusive hand gestures, and a great deal of editorializing.

Raph listens, solemn but skeptical, and when Mike is finally done he shakes his head and leaves. He doesn't believe Yoshi's memories are present in the orb, but without any apparent thought as to the inherent contradiction, he resumes his practice of the arts passed down to him from the old master.

Thus, some hours later, following vigorous practice of a more active and interesting sort, Raphael is sitting in meditation. He is minding his own business, dutifully working at this skill he has little love or talent for, when someone calls his name.

" _Raphael._ "

Someone who sounds a lot like one of those cliché Voices-From-The-Other-Side.

Determined not to be distracted from this practice now that he's made himself sit down and begin it, Raph ignores _someone_ and continues his meditation.

The voice comes again. " _Raphael._ "

"Knock it off, Mikey," Raph says out the side of his mouth.

And again, more insistently: " _Rapha-ellll_."

"Mikey -!" He snaps one eye open and rakes his gaze around the Lair. He sees no signs of prank-pulling, supernatural-occurrence-obsessed little brothers, but in a family of ninjas, that doesn't mean much. He slams his lid shut again and resumes his focus.

But only for a moment before: " _Raphael, my grandson._ "

Raph leaps to his feet, glaring around with both eyes now. Still no flash of orange bandana, but as his gaze skips over the open door of Splinter's room, he can't help noticing that Yoshi's orb seems to be glowing.

"Mikey, if that's you with a flashlight -"

No telltale giggle answers him.

He finds another place to meditate.

* * *

Donatello approaches the orb like a science project.

To be fair, he approaches it like a _very respected_ science project. He handles it with a great deal of care, as well as a certain degree of what can only be described as deference.

"I don't understand how you're able to communicate with it," Don says to Mike, as he pores over a page of numbers at the kitchen table. Mike understands that all these numbers were in some way derived from the orb, and he's smart enough to know that numbers can tell you stuff about things, but he doesn't really see how even the most complicated formula could begin to describe a living person.

Or a person who _used_ to be living.

"Him."

"Hm?"

"No, _him_. The orb isn't an 'it', Donnie."

Don looks up from his pencil-scratching. "Okay, my very insightful brother. How do you communicate with _him?_ "

Mike takes the pencil away from Don, and stuffs it back in the Catchall Cup. "It's called talking. Let's practice now."

Don looks unimpressed. "But how do you talk to someone who's an _orb?_ "

"Like this." Mike reaches over, seizes Don's head, and begins opening and closing his jaw in time to his own words. "Hi, I'm Donatello. I'm a big nerd who can solve hard math problems but doesn't know how to talk to people. Now tell me something about yourself, Mr. Orb Sir."

Don pushes Mike off, seizes his pencil back, and glares at his equations.

"Well, okay," Mike says, leaning back in his chair. "Don't say I never tried to save you hours of boring work."

Don doesn't seem to be listening.

* * *

Leo spends some days considering Michelangelo's tale, weighing the potential rewards if it's true against the certain disappointment and embarrassment if it's a joke. In the end, his desire to understand his roots, and his need for a hero, conquer his fear of failure and humiliation.

For the following days, he sits in front of the orb, every line of his face and body showing his determination. With all the power of his mind and spirit and will, he attempts to make contact.

After sensing the boy struggle for some time, the memories take pity on him and reach out. The spirits of man and turtle materialize on a high mountain top, exactly the austere setting Leonardo imagines Yoshi to belong in, and the turtle speaks first.

"M-Master Yoshi. It's an honor to finally meet you." He bows low, and Yoshi hides his amusement by bowing back.

"Greetings, Leonardo. I have heard much about you from your Master Splinter. It is good to meet you in person at last. Ah, as it were," he says wryly, gesturing vaguely at their astral surroundings. Leonardo only nods eagerly.

"There's so much I've wanted to ask you, Master Yoshi. I'm sure you have much wisdom you could impart. Please, tell me," and the memories brace themselves for a barrage of trivial questions, "are you happy here?"

For some reason this surprises the memories, and they think that perhaps second-hand accounts are as limited as they remember them being. Yoshi smiles and invites the young man to sit down as he begins to attempt to answer his question.

* * *

Leo returns to the kitchen looking like he just found all the answers, only to realize he didn't understand the question. Wordlessly, with that nameless power that was both cause and effect of being chosen as leader, he calls his brothers to him.

They go together, silently, into Splinter's room. The orb rests on the low table, looking like an ordinary glass ornament, and they seat themselves around it.

Don raises a questioning brow; Raph's mouth quirks down into an irritated scowl. Leo fixes his eyes upon the orb and Mike sees where this is going.

They meditate, as one spirit.

Yoshi greets them each warmly, by name, seeing their uniqueness even in their solidarity. He invites them into his memories, sharing them as the Utroms had shared their history with him.

Splinter finds them that way, and waits. In time they return to him, opening eyes that have seen other worlds.

* * *

The orb does not speak again after that. Perhaps it has spent itself, pouring the entirety of its essence into new vessels, transferring careful copies to less fragile hosts.

They rarely speak _of_ the orb, either. Each has seen all that it contained, equally, and there is nothing more about it that they can share.

Splinter can see its effects, though, on each of his sons:

Leonardo, who now carries the weight of leadership with easier balance. He has the same gravity, but returns to it more effortlessly, becoming in turn more able to escape from it when the situation demands lightheartedness.

Raphael, still intense in his propensity to disagree, but with a greater degree of respect for other's strengths, and a new sense of tolerance for their weaknesses.

Michelangelo, still cheerful, but less frenetic about it. He is maturing as a teller of stories and caretaker of spirits, and Splinter worries less that he will lose these qualities as he grows.

And lastly, Donatello, whose imagination has been stretched even beyond its previous generous limits. His inventions grow increasingly creative and ambitious, his ability to turn trash into dreams ever more remarkable.

In life, Yoshi gave much to all around him, and even in death he has passed on a precious gift to his four unlooked-for grandsons. Splinter keeps the now-silent orb on the family's altar, pays his respects to it daily, and then goes out to attend to his work.

If he can live his life with even half the courage, generosity, and adherence to duty that his master did, that will be the best honor he can give to the memories.


	20. Generations

I'm not sure when this story was written, but here is the original author's note explaining the inspiration behind it:

It occurred to me that there's a lot of stuff in canon and fannon about how Splinter dealt with losing his master, but there's almost nothing about the other side of the coin: how the Ancient One dealt with losing his son. This story is a kind of missing scene from "Fathers and Sons" (the Lost Season episode), explaining how the Ancient One welcomed the bearer of bad news, and why a rat, four turtles, and an old man couldn't be a family.

* * *

 **Generations**

 _{From one father to another.}_

The two masters sat, staring into the heart of the flame. Outside, it was dark. Within the home, only this tame and banked fire. Electric light was just a flip of a switch away, but glaring incandescence would have been out of place with the black mood, almost sacrilegious.

"You must be careful of your sons, Splinter-san," the Ancient One said at last.

Splinter did not reply immediately. He had learned quickly that the old sensei's words were rarely to be taken at face value. They were meant to sit on the mind, to age and distill. The Ancient One was wise indeed, but he did not dispense his wisdom cheaply.

 _Anything worth having, is worth working for..._

Splinter turned the words over, looked at them from different angles, but he could not see what the Ancient One wanted him to learn from them.

"I do not take your meaning, Ancient One," he said at last.

The Ancient One was silent for a while as well. Splinter couldn't blame him. It had been only a day since the aging man had learned the awful news, news that Splinter had had to bring.

News of the death of his son.

"I had three children, once," the Ancient One began. "Good children, who loved each other as siblings should. I never saw... that it would end like this."

"I am sorry," Splinter said. It was not enough, was not anything, but it was all he could offer.

The Ancient One jerked his head up sharply, the flames he looked over seeming to burn in his eyes. "You must be wary, Splinter-san! You must guard them from jealousy!"

"They have nothing to be jealous of," Splinter said. "We have nothing."

"You are foolish!" the Ancient One snapped. "Did I think my sons would fight over their sister? No! Your sons will grow, they will have desires, they will find something to fight over!"

Splinter tried to imagine his sons, his sweet boys, fighting over anything more significant than a toy, anything that would not be forgotten in five minutes. He couldn't see it.

The Ancient One seemed to read his thoughts, his denial that this could happen in his own family. "You will lose them, Splinter-san," he said wearily. He poked at the fire with a stick. "You know nothing of vengeance."

Something hardened in Splinter's heart. "Do you not know how I was named, Ancient One?"

The Ancient One laid down his stick, and waited.

"It was from something you said." Splinter's tail recurled around his folded legs. "The words you told my Master Yoshi, as he went to slay his brother Mashimi. 'Vengeance is like a splinter,' you said. 'It gets under your skin, and can poison your life.'" He looked at the red coals, glowing beneath the flames. "My Master heard your words, Ancient One. He did not forget." He closed his eyes, shutting out the image of the fire, but not the feel of its heat against his face. "Do not tell _me_ about vengeance."

"Remembering my warning did not protect him from what I warned him of," the Ancient One said. "He could have ended it there, could have stayed with me to mourn Tang Shen. But he did not." He took up the stick again, clenching it in his fist until the wood creaked. "His anger cost me two more children!"

Splinter waited.

"I lost my Yoshi twice," the Ancient One went on, more softly. "Once, here, to anger. And once, in a foreign land, to betrayal."

"I am sorry," Splinter said again.

The flames crackled, and Splinter reflected on how a tiny spark of jealousy had grown into a blaze that had destroyed so many lives.

The Ancient One laughed suddenly, startling Splinter from his thoughts. "What a funny family we are! Every generation, taking in orphans. My Yoshi's pet rat, coming from America - 'Your son is dead, but look, I have brought you four great-grandchildren!'" He pointed the stick at Splinter, frighteningly fast. "You take care of my great-grandsons, Splinter-san! When they are grown, they will visit me with their own foundling children, to bring me joy in my very old age!"

Splinter's brows rose in surprise. "Visit you...? Ancient One, I had thought we would stay here..."

"What?" The Ancient One's arm shot to the side, and he smacked the stick against the wooden floor. "No! I don't want any children running around my home! I am an old man! I need my rest!"

Splinter couldn't imagine there were many old people _less_ in need of rest than the Ancient One, but he held his tongue.

"You go home!" the Ancient One went on. "When your sons grow up, if they any good, you send them to me for training. I make them warriors!" He cut himself off then, sobering with the same speed of his earlier actions, and Splinter sifted his words, winnowing out the real reason why his sons were not welcome in that house.

 _He does not trust himself with any more children..._

 _But he is not a bad father. Just a very unlucky one._

Splinter believed that, did not think that what happened between Yoshi, Mashimi, and Tang Shen had anything to do with the Ancient One's parenting skills, or lack thereof. He trusted the old sensei implicitly, had undergone great difficulty and danger in order to reach him. He had been hoping the arduous journey would be one-way, that he and his sons would remain in the land of their ancestors, with the only family they had left.

But if it was not to be, it was not to be. He would accept what the Ancient One was willing to give, and not ask for any more.

"I appreciate your offer, Ancient One," Splinter said, bowing his head. "It may be that we have need of your hospitality in future. For now, though, we will impose upon you only until morning."

The Ancient One nodded, and poked the fire again. "You have good sons, Splinter-san. Do not let silly rivalries take them from each other."

"Thank you," Splinter said. "For the compliment, and the advice."

It seemed that the Ancient One was about to say something else, but at that moment the four young Turtles came running down the stairs, shouting about ghosts.

It would be many years before Splinter had another opportunity to speak with the Ancient One. In the time between, Splinter learned much about jealousy, anger, and revenge, and often wondered what his master's master had wanted him to know while his sons were still small.


	21. Inheritance

2k3 pretty much left no stone unturned in connecting things to other things. The continuity was impeccable. And yet, there are some stellar fics out there that are premised on drawing additional connections between characters and events in the canon. Here is one more in that tradition, which I hope rises to a similar level of excellence.

* * *

 **Inheritance**

Raphael sat on the couch, reading a holo-mag and enjoying how the 3D pictures let him examine the hoverbike models from any angle. As much as he hated breakfast squares, oxygen regulators, and mirrors that talked back to him, there _were_ things he would miss about the future when he finally got back to his own time.

"Hey, Cody?"

Raph looked up. Michelangelo had just wandered into the open-plan living space from the back hallway, apparently in search of Cody, who was sitting at the long dining table, working on whatever it was that rich, underage geniuses worked on in their overabundance of free time.

Cody lowered the stylus of his electronic contraption. "What's up, Mike?"

"I got a question," Mike said. He plunked himself down in one of the starkly geometric chairs around the starkly geometric table. "So, your collection."

Cody perked up instantly at the topic of conversation. Raph's interest was piqued as well, but he pretended that it wasn't, and went back to rotating the translucent little vehicles.

"I get why you collect _our_ stuff," Mike went on. "I mean, we're awesome. But - well, I know I'm not supposed to ask, but it's killing me, dude... _Why_ do you have a suit of Shredder armor?"

"Um..."

Raph looked up, with a Stealthy Ninja Gaze, to see Cody's eyes darting nervously around the room.

"Okay, how about if I guess?" Mike persisted. "And you can sort of wink if I guess right. Like this." He winked exaggeratedly. Cody didn't exactly say yes to any of this, but Mike continued anyway. "Here's my guess: We go back to our own time, kick the Shredder's butt, and sort of, y'know, keep his armor as a trophy. And then, somehow... you get it. Right?" He leaned over the table, peering into Cody's face, searching for a wink. "You can wink now, little buddy."

"Uh, sure, Mike," Cody said. "That's exactly how it happened."

"Okay, cool." Mike got up and walked away, whistling. He left his chair sitting out at an angle, a sharp zigzag in the otherwise unbroken line of chair-backs.

"Hey, Cody."

Cody rolled his stylus across the tabletop with one finger. "What, Raph?"

Raph gestured to the couch facing the one he was sitting on. "Come here a minute."

Cody got up, pushed in his chair in an automatic way, and came to sit heavily in the indicated place. "What?"

Raph turned off the holo-mag and laid it on the cushion beside him. "Listen," he said, leaning forward. "I've been sittin' on this for a while, but I really gotta ask." He paused a moment, debating whether he really _did_ want to ask. Then he plunged onwards. "The Shredder armor."

"Raph -"

"The _gloves_ ," Raph said, heedless of the interruption. "They only got three fingers. You wanna explain that?"

Answers Raph didn't want to hear were written all over Cody's face, but all the young heir said was: "You know I can't."

Raph sighed and ran a hand over his head. "Listen, Kid. I - I had this - this kind of dream once. I never told nobody... I dreamed I saw myself wearing the Shredder armor. I - I'm scared, Cody. Is..." He looked away, and lowered his voice. "Is that armor _mine?_ "

"I can't tell you," Cody said softly.

"What you said to Mikey -" Raph fixed Cody with a penetrating gaze. "Was it true?"

Cody's voice shrank. "Technically?"

" _Technically?_ " Raph stood up and paced between the couches. "Did my own brothers have to -" He broke off. "Get rid of it."

"What?"

" _Get rid of it._ "

"Raph..." Cody rose, and put his hand on Raphael's shoulder. "Getting rid of it now won't get rid of it in the past."

Raph spun and grabbed Cody's arms. "They'll see it!" he shouted. "They'll _see_ it! They'll know that I -" He realized what he was doing, and pushed away, averting his face. "Please. Get rid of it."

"It won't change anything, Raph."

"It _will_ ," Raph said fiercely. "Don't you get it, Cody? I figured it out. I know. And I'm _not_ gonna let it happen. I don't -" He picked up the narrow wand of the holo-mag, and clutched it in his fingers. "I don't want my brothers to know it would have."

Cody moved up beside him, touching his shoulder again, and this time Raph put his own hand over his host's. "Did we -" He swallowed hard, trying to clear some of the hoarseness from his voice. "Did we really keep it, after... ?"

"Raph," Cody said. "I'll get rid of it. But you have to promise not to ask me any more questions."

Raph grit his teeth. The half-knowing was unbearable. But not as bad as... "All right."

Cody slid his fingers out from between Raph's hand and shoulder. "It will be gone in the morning."

"Thanks, Cody," Raph said quietly. He turned his head to look at the boy, this descendant of the allies he had left in the past. "You're... you're a good friend."

"I owe you guys a lot," Cody said. "I... I can't explain that either. But believe me, I haven't even _begun_ to pay off my debt."

"It's okay," Raph said. "Whatever we did, it wasn't for the material rewards, y'know?"

Cody smiled, and nodded.

"But, seriously, Kid..."

Cody's smile faded a little. "Yeah?"

Raphael looked down at the holo-mag in his hand, then back at Cody. "The time-window..."

"I know," Cody said. "I'm working on it."

"I mean, it's just takin' a really long time, and..." Raph hesitated. "You're not, uh, sabotagin' it, or... ?"

"No, I -" Cody's brow drew down. "Do you _want_ me to?"

The question hung between them for a long moment.

"No," Raphael said finally. "No. Whatever happened, whatever's gonna happen... I gotta go back and face it." He cleared his throat again, and changed the subject. "So... I guess you won't tell me... ?"

"It all works out," Cody said. "I promise."

Raph nodded. "Thanks, Kid."

Cody touched his shoulder again briefly, and walked away.

Raph sighed. It was nice to be reassured about his future, but he was deeply worried about his past.


	22. Thicker Than Blood

My notes say this story may have been related to some kind of challenge. Other than that, I remember nothing about when or why it was written. A short meditation on the meaning of family.

* * *

 **Thicker Than Blood**

"Hello?" April calls into the Lair. Her voice is subdued.

Four mutant turtles materialize from various corners of their underground home.

"Hey, April," Mike says. "What's shakin'?"

"I did the DNA test," she says, fanning out a sheaf of papers. Her eyes turn to the eldest brother. "Leo, I'm so sorry."

"What?" Leo asks, reaching for his printout. "Do I have a disease?"

"No, no," April says quickly. "You're fine. Your DNA is stable." She glances at each of the Turtles, including all of them in that statement, before returning her gaze to Leo. "But... you're not related to them."

"Geez, April." Leo wipes the back of his hand across his forehead. "Don't scare me like that."

She continues to look at him sadly. "I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't want to be the bearer of bad news."

"What bad news?" Mike says. He flaps his DNA chart. "We're not gonna melt into puddles of goo! That's _great_ news!"

"But..." April starts.

"But what?" Leo says. "We don't share the same biological parents? That doesn't even begin to outweigh all the things we _do_ share."

"Seriously, April," Raph says. "Don't you know any adopted people?"

"Family isn't about what's in here," Don says. He skims his fingers up and down his arm, indicating veins, then presses his finger to his heart. "It's about what's in here."

April just stares at them, flabbergasted.

"You hungry?" Mike asks. "We oughta have a party. A not-having-our-limbs-fall-off-when-we're-twenty party."

Raph shrugs. "Sounds like a good reason to me."

"Where's Master Splinter?" Leo asks. He turns to April. " _He's_ not going to melt, is he?"

"No," April says, glancing down at the fifth printout. "He's fine too."

"Good," Leo says. "Let's go tell him the news."

They find Splinter, and have an impromptu party. No one mentions what April found in Leo's DNA.

She has the feeling it might come up later, as a mildly interesting fact.

Then again, they might have already forgotten about it.

But she won't.

And next time she refers to the Turtles as her family, she'll mean it a little more.


	23. Two Stories Without Turtles

"Where are the Turtles?" everyone always complains, when their favorite mutants are not featured early enough or often enough in a story. Even when that story is canon. But, you know, there are other characters in this fictional universe too. Here are two stories that include not a single anthropomorphic reptile, but instead focus on friends of the Turtles trying to cope with other aspects of their lives.

* * *

She's sitting in a cafe, drinking really good coffee and enjoying a moment of normalcy, when a familiar woman swoops in and plunks herself in the chair on the opposite side of the little table.

"April!" The woman unloads her drink, her paper bag containing pastries unknown, her coat, her purse, as if she'd been invited to stay for a while. "I haven't heard from you in ages! How are you?"

It takes her a moment, and then she knows. This is Susan, a close friend from high school. Neither moved far away, and they've mostly been in touch through the intervening years, but things have just been so crazy lately...

"Not so bad," she says. "How are you these days?"

"Keeping," Susan says, but it's obvious she doesn't want to talk about herself. "No one's heard from you since the fire - where are you staying? What have you been doing?"

For one insane moment April wants to tell her everything. How she met four giant turtles and a hockey-obsessed vigilante. How the turtles - _nice guys, really_ \- temporarily moved into her apartment. How the fire, ruled an accident, just a gas leak, had actually been started by a man in metal armor who had a vendetta against the turtles and now, by association, against her. How she had spent several days in western Massachusetts, at the vigilante's country house, watching helplessly while one of the turtles hovered near death. How she had helped the turtles infiltrate a mysterious office building...

 _Yes!_ she wanted to shout. _You know that office building that imploded? That was me; I was involved in that..._

How she was now living beneath the streets of New York, dependent on the protection and hospitality of the giant turtles, with no idea how she was going to get her normal life back.

"I'm staying with friends," she hears herself saying, "and not doing anything very exciting."

* * *

It only takes her two rings to pick up the phone. "Hello?"

"Hi, Ma, it's me."

"Oh, hel _lo_ , Arnold. How are you?"

"I'm good, Ma. I got good news."

He can hear her settling into the armchair. "Tell me."

"You remember April?"

"Sure. Nice girl."

"Well, I asked her to marry me, an' she said yes."

"Oh, I'm so glad! She's a good woman."

"Thanks, Ma." Her approval makes him feel much less nervous about the whole thing.

"So, what's the date?"

"We're still kinda workin' that out... about a year, maybe."

"You know," she says, "you never told me how the two of you met."

"It's kind of a long story..."

"I have time."

He thinks for a minute. Then he says: "You remember the giant turtle and the enormous rat?"


	24. In Another Life

"Wait a minute," you're saying right now, "'In Another Life' is not a secret fic. It's been posted on FFN for years."

Well, yes, it has. But before it was posted on FFN, it was posted on Stealthy Stories, in a somewhat different form. That version lacked the scene in the zoo, and instead included this bit of silliness.

* * *

 **In Another Life**

 **or, Five Ways April Never Met the Turtles**

 **(Sixth)**

April always enjoyed her vacations to Florida. Usually she would lay on the beach and pointedly not read any newspapers. Sometimes she would rent snorkel equipment and go out in the clear water.

This was one of those times.

It was off-season, and the beach was nearly deserted. A few people strolled the dunes or waded in the surf, but April had the ocean beyond the gentle drop-off practically to herself.

Drifting past a school of striped fish, she noticed a sea turtle swimming in the hazy distance. As she followed it lazily, she noticed it was big. Its shell had to be three feet across. And it was moving at a strangely steady pace. It never fully disappeared, but she never got close enough to see it clearly.

These thoughts were pushed out of her mind when a second enormous turtle appeared out of the blueness, heading directly for the first. The two turtles floated together, stationary at last, seemingly in conference.

As April drew nearer, she began to think there was something strange about these turtles, and cursed herself for not properly washing the lenses of her mask before she moved out past where she could stand up. Just as the two turtles were finally coming into focus, the second one rolled over and - unmistakably - raised a forelimb and _waved_.

April screamed through her snorkel, swallowed a lot of water, and kicked out for the shore. She pulled her mask off as she plowed through the shallows, gasping for breath. She scrambled up the sand and collapsed above the tide line. "Damn!" she panted. "Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water!"


	25. On the Roof

I have no idea when this story was written or where it was ever posted. But, like the previous chapters, it focuses on the Turtles through the eyes of their friends, and so it seems to fit right here in the anthology.

 _Bonus note: A few weeks after originally posting this chapter, I stumbled across some records indicating that it was first posted on Stealthy Stories in June 2009._

* * *

I stick a post-it, written on the back, to the kitchen window, and go up to the roof to watch the sun set.

Sure enough, after dark, I find myself joined by a shadow of a friend.

"Hi," he says. "Saw your note." A comfortable pause. "What brings you up here?"

I take my time, thinking about it. He's looking at the sky, not even really waiting, just being. There's no rush.

"I thought it would be nice to... take the evening air."

He nods, dark against dark.

This is where our worlds overlap, just for a little while. The night is early enough that my mind doesn't populate it with bogeymen or with flesh-and-blood criminals; late enough to cover him with a cloak of safety, of anonymity.

 _Are YOU even sure which one he is?_

It can be hard to tell, when he's just a shape, a soft voice, a solidity in the gently moving air.

 _Of course I am._

It's beautiful up here.

The little boxed-in roof of my two-story building is freedom for me, but just a waypoint for him, a launching pad before he rockets away under the stars. (Stretching himself over thirty-story drops, swinging up crenellations, reveling in the interplay of body and building, anatomy and architecture. Once I was on a mission with them - when we made our escape, they ordered me to ride turtle-back as they booked it over the roofs. I was convinced I was going to die at any second. It was also the most exhilarating experience of my life.)

Sometimes I don't know why they come to my place so often. Sometimes I do. I'm their link to the opposite half, their doorway to the world on the other side of sunrise. They stand in the edge of twilight, catching the reflected glow, picking up breadcrumbs.

I stand there too, in the cool penumbra, because I hate being trapped on my side of the line, always hearing _women shouldn't be out alone after dark_. In a still-not-perfect city, they make things a little more okay. They would never let the monsters catch me, never let the blackness swallow me down.

I trust them. And I know, from their increasing unselfconsciousness about topics of conversation (details their enemies would pay anything to know, details that make me even more fiercely protective of my mutant family) that they trust me.

I know, from the way that they no longer feel compelled to talk all the time, nervously spilling out words, constantly reminding me that they're not what they look like.

I know. I've learned. I don't forget who they are when they're quiet, don't lose my trust when I can't see what they're doing.

Like now.

His strength and his weapons ( _which weapons, are you sure?_ ) so close, so invisible, and this easy silence between us, and it hardly even matters which one he is, because I know none of them would ever hurt me.

These are not the people my parents warned me about.

Time's up. The day shift is over; the night shift is starting. This belongs to him.

I move towards the edge of the roof. "Are you coming in?" I ask, but I don't think he will. For them, _in_ is a place to wait out the sun. Not a place to go during those precious hours of deep dark, when their own bogeymen seek refuge, and the roofs and alleyways become the castles and boulevards in their kingdom of the night.

"No," he says. As I climb over the low wall, I feel him watching me, making sure I get onto the ladder safely, ready to catch me if I don't. "Good night."

"Good night," I reply, with a slightly canted emphasis that gives the phrase a sense of promise, of possibility.

I wish they could have the sun.

But I love that they own the dark.


	26. What Could Have Been

Some of my fics will remain secret... like the odd bits and pieces that may get incorporated into a real story someday, and the story whose special formatting requirements FFN can't handle. For now, this is the last chapter of my anthology: a look at what could have been.

* * *

Yoshi doesn't know when he became the kind of well-fed-looking boy that other children try to beg from.

He is always generous with them, remembering that he used to be among their number. He dispenses his few coins and candies with a warm smile and a kind word. He doesn't need these things: he has a roof to sleep under and dinner every night, and these are infinitely more precious than what he gives away.

* * *

Normally he gives things for the asking, but something about this girl - so tiny, but with such fierce challenge in her eyes - inspires him to try the same trick the Ancient One had used on him and Mashimi.

"If you can snatch this sweet from my hand," he tells her, showing an open palm, "you may have it."

Yoshi's training has only increased his speed, and the girl fails. He gives her the chocolate anyway, and a word of advice on a good sleeping-place he knows.

Her eyes follow him as he walks home.

* * *

She takes his advice.

A man finds her there that evening. She gives him the same look she gave that infuriating boy, but with yet another degree of hardness in the emerald stare.

When the man offers his hand, there is nothing in it. Nothing but a promise. He doesn't ask for speed, but with her street-honed instincts she senses her time for action is limited.

* * *

Years later, she still wonders why she did it. Maybe because the man seemed to expect much from her, where the boy had been condescending. Maybe because anything was better than the drafty warehouse she had been directed to.

The only thing she knows is that she regrets nothing.


End file.
